Thursday, November 30, 2006

Brought to power from Sufi circles?

By A. Turan Alkan - Zaman Online - Istanbul, Turkey
Monday, September 18, 2006

While the Pope is being forced to apologize to the Islamic community, let’s not ignore the news sent from Rome by Yasemin Taskin of the “Sabah” newspaper. Published under the title, “The Vatican’s striking report on Turkey: There’s no secularism in Turkey,” the text of the news in the newspaper is very different from the copy on the Internet. I’ll refer to the Internet copy because it’s more comprehensive.

(...)

There are other interesting details in the report and they hint that the Pope approached his visit to Turkey more as a statesman than as a spiritual leader.

“Although Turkey expelled Islam from the political realm, it sprouted in civil society. Turgut Ozal’s being brought to power from Sufi circles with the approval of the military and America also took place in this period. Within political Islam and with Sufi leanings, the ruling JDP takes its place as a movement different from the Arabs’ understanding of political Islam. Describing itself as democratic and pro-Western, the JDP is creating an interesting political experiment. Hated by the Arabs, the “Christian” West can establish a dialogue with this party. The West can create a common area with the JDP based on great political themes. Islam fundamentalists see the Turkish model as its greatest enemy. It can be understood that they would like to end this (JDP) experiment with the bomb power. There’s a great probability that there will be followers of the Erdogan model outside of Turkey. This is extremely dangerous for those who don’t want dialogue between the Islamic world and the West.”

Let’s not ask the question, “How can a state report be leaked to the outside?” Maybe that’s one of the calculated moves.

The important thing is which square Turkey occupies on the chessboard and which figure it represents; let’s think about this a little.

No comments:

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Brought to power from Sufi circles?
By A. Turan Alkan - Zaman Online - Istanbul, Turkey
Monday, September 18, 2006

While the Pope is being forced to apologize to the Islamic community, let’s not ignore the news sent from Rome by Yasemin Taskin of the “Sabah” newspaper. Published under the title, “The Vatican’s striking report on Turkey: There’s no secularism in Turkey,” the text of the news in the newspaper is very different from the copy on the Internet. I’ll refer to the Internet copy because it’s more comprehensive.

(...)

There are other interesting details in the report and they hint that the Pope approached his visit to Turkey more as a statesman than as a spiritual leader.

“Although Turkey expelled Islam from the political realm, it sprouted in civil society. Turgut Ozal’s being brought to power from Sufi circles with the approval of the military and America also took place in this period. Within political Islam and with Sufi leanings, the ruling JDP takes its place as a movement different from the Arabs’ understanding of political Islam. Describing itself as democratic and pro-Western, the JDP is creating an interesting political experiment. Hated by the Arabs, the “Christian” West can establish a dialogue with this party. The West can create a common area with the JDP based on great political themes. Islam fundamentalists see the Turkish model as its greatest enemy. It can be understood that they would like to end this (JDP) experiment with the bomb power. There’s a great probability that there will be followers of the Erdogan model outside of Turkey. This is extremely dangerous for those who don’t want dialogue between the Islamic world and the West.”

Let’s not ask the question, “How can a state report be leaked to the outside?” Maybe that’s one of the calculated moves.

The important thing is which square Turkey occupies on the chessboard and which figure it represents; let’s think about this a little.

No comments: